


shortcuts to happiness

by MashpotatoeQueen5



Series: let's dance in the kitchen and call it something like love [1]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Bart Allen Deserves Happiness, Best Friends, Bluepulse, Dancing, Dancing and Singing, Either way it would still be pre-relationship, Epic Friendship, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fluff, Food, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Growing Up, I am basically force feeding you sugar, I am of the firm opinion that dance parties are on a magic equivalent to dinosaurs and rainbow cakes, Joyful, Laughter, Life is better when you're dancing, Male Friendship, Maybe - Freeform, Movie Night, Slow Dancing, Team Bonding, Teenage Dorks, Teenagers, The goal is to make it a little hug for your heart, This entire fic is soft, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Whelp, You can also just take it as two kids being dorks, You ever think about Bart and cry, cause i do, happiness, if you want it to be, learning new things, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23168707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MashpotatoeQueen5/pseuds/MashpotatoeQueen5
Summary: Bart doesn't know what dancing is.Jaime doesn't know how to explain it, so he shows him.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West, Bart Allen & Jaime Reyes, Bart Allen/HAPPINESS
Series: let's dance in the kitchen and call it something like love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665436
Comments: 27
Kudos: 144





	shortcuts to happiness

**Author's Note:**

> "There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them. " - Vicki Baum
> 
> I'm not a trained dancer or anything, but I think some of the times I'm at my happiest is when I'm in the kitchen, socks sliding against white tiles, music blasting through the speakers, dancing with my siblings as if the whole wide rest of the world doesn't matter at all.
> 
> Maybe, when you're dancing, it doesn't.
> 
> I'd like to think so. <3

It starts like this:

Bart is hanging out at Barry and Iris’ place, raiding the snack stash he keeps in the guest bathroom. There had been a promise of a homemade meal later, and some sort of movie called _Lilo and Stitch,_ because his grandpa had heard that he hadn’t watched it and made a strangled, betrayed sound in his throat.

And he likes movie nights. A lot. There’s popcorn. And blankets. And fun stories told through moving pictures instead of Reach decrees. And popcorn. And cuddling. And _popcorn._

Bart really likes popcorn. 

In fact, he likes popcorn _so much_ that he figures it would be okay to sneak into the kitchen and maybe steal a little bit before the movie began. Just to keep him going. A little snackysnack to follow up his pre-dinner snack. A post-snack, if you will.

And then he hears the music.

Music. Playing from the phone. Something a little funky, a little slow. And he’s smiling already because Bart _loves_ music, has listened to everything he could get his hands on since coming back in time. The team sometimes plays it during training, and it turns out Barry and Iris _also_ like music and-

And-

And then he freezes, not quite entering the doorway, because they’re _doing_ something.

The music is playing in the background, a few massive bowls of popcorn already set aside, and Barry and Iris are standing in the middle of the kitchen, almost like they’re hugging each other, except they’re moving? Swaying, back and forth, around and around, spinning with the tune.

Bart’s never seen anything like it.

What is this? What _is_ this? Some sort of old-timey courting ritual? Or maybe a popcorn making tradition he wasn’t aware of?

He doesn’t _know._

But for a moment, he stares.

Just a moment.

And then he slowly, slowly, retreats and sits back down on the couch.

A week later, and Bart’s almost put it out of his mind. 

Except-

Except, he’s in the cave playing Animal Crossing on his phone while everyone else is doing homework, Cassie’s playlist working through one pop song after another. Everyone’s resigned to her reign of music, because she won the arm wrestling competition fair and square, and even if pop wasn’t one’s favourite genre it still had its moments.

This is normal. This is all normal.

But then M’gann steps into the room, green and glowing and vibrant, and she says, excited and beaming and genuine, “Oh! I love this song!”

She reaches out and grabs Garfield, pulling him to his feet and giving him a spin. The green boy laughs, going willingly, reaching up high to spin his sister in turn. And Cassie rolls her eyes- except before she knows it she’s been pulled up, too. La’gaan offers a mock bow that she graciously returns, and then they’re off in a craze of movement and limbs. And Batgirl has even got Robin to his feet, the teen rolling his eyes as she moves around him, shaking to and fro and tapping to the beat.

And Bart is left standing on excerpts, frozen, watching the explosion of motion occur in front of him, having not a single clue as to what is going on.

So Bart does what he always does when he encounters a situation he’s lost in: he runs.

_Runs._

It comes to a head hardly a day later.

Bart is in Jaime’s kitchen, the older boy showing him how to make ‘ _proper_ enchiladas’ because apparently he was personally offended by the store bought ones he found in the cave’s refrigerator. 

Jaime’s little sister is sitting on the island, laptop in hand, clicking through videos. 

Some of them have music.

And-

And there’s one song. One song, and Jaime just, he starts to- _move to it._ Just a little bit. Back and forth. Bart latches onto it immediately because _not knowing has been driving him crazy_ and so he stares, stares, trying to figure it _out-_

The song transitions to some guy talking about video games, and it goes on for about four minutes before Jaime loses patience and shoos his sister away to the living room.

The minute she’s gone, Bart jumps on the question.

“What _is that?”_

Jaime frowns.

“What?”

“The thing! The thing you were doing! With your body! Where you were-” he poorly tries to imitate it, “That!”

His friend still looks confused.

So Bart tries again.

“You know, with the- with the music?”

And Jaime slowly puts down the onion, asks, a little incredulously, a little lost, “You mean _dancing?”_

And… Bart isn’t sure if that is indeed what he actually means. But he nods. Hesitatingly.

“They don’t have _dancing_ in the future?”

Maybe he shouldn’t feel indigent. But he does. It’s not _his_ fault that the Reach turned everything on mode!

“We were a _little busy_ trying to _survive_.”

Closing his eyes, perhaps at the reminder, or maybe just in exasperation- Bart couldn’t tell- Jaime breathed heavily through his nose. He looked at Bart. Bart looked back, feeling awkward and determined and impatient.

“Okay,” says Jaime. And then, again, louder. “Okay.”

The older boy takes out his phone, messes around with it for a minute. And then another song starts playing, tinny in the small kitchen space. He takes one of Bart’s hands, settles it on his shoulder. Takes the other into his grip.

Bart has no idea what’s going on. 

But he doesn’t feel like running away, either.

“Okay,” says Jaime, one last time. “We’re gonna move now, alright?”

He nods in response. 

And then they _are_ moving. Around and around, in little shuffling circles. Kind of like Iris and Barry. Kind of like Megan and Garfield.

Mostly like Jaime and Bart, though, which is the part that he likes best.

And as the tempo picks up faster, they start going faster, too. And Jaime’s kinda bopping his head up and down with the music, and Bart’s trying to kind of copy him, trying to kind of just keep his feet steady under him.

This is _so_ different from running.

Not bad.

Just-

Different.

And then Jaime _spins him._

He can’t help it. He laughs. It bursts out of him like fireworks, all bright and breathless and happy. Jaime just smiles at him, spins him again and again, and it’s like flying. 

He could have never had this, in the future. This could have never been his, never in a million billion years could he have had this. And-

And they dance.

They dance together. They dance apart. Bart throws his arms in the air and wiggles every square inch of himself, and Jaime is nodding and pumping his elbows and sliding on socked feet across the tiled floor, throwing in random twirls and high spirited jumps. 

And they dance.

Kicking feet and swinging hips. Hair whipping through the air. Hands bursting all over the place, high and low and to the sides. The enchiladas have been completely forgotten in favour of the music. Skipping, shimmying, _leaping-_

And they dance.

They dance until Bart is laughing so hard he can’t even see. Laughing at the way Jaime imitates a chicken. Laughing at the way he tips and overbalances. Laughing at how Jaime dips him, and how his friend falls to his butt when he tries to return the favour. It just keeps pouring out, on and on and on. Like once he got started it became impossible to stop. 

He can run for miles and miles and miles and never even have need for breath, but now he’s panting and flushed from excursion, from this _happiness_ that is just bubbling up in his soul, spilling out and over. 

Maybe that’s what laughter is: joy that can’t be contained in your chest, joy so big and bright it just has to be heard.

And then they dance some more.

* * *

**_"I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter:_ **

**_it has made the world lovable,_ **

**_despite all its pain and wrong."_ **

**_W.E.B. Du Bois_ **

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Do you have any people you'd like me to write dancing together next? It can be in the wider DCU: it doesn't necessarily have to be Young Justice.
> 
> (Though I haven't watched Season 3 yet, so maybe no spoilers for that?)
> 
> If you don't have anyone in mind, what's your favourite song about dancing? Or always has you dancing no matter how many times you listen to it? Or maybe just means a lot to you? I always love new music! <3
> 
> Leave a comment below and let me know! Thanks for reading!


End file.
